Petaluma, Calif. - On Wednesday, October 21, President Barack Obama held a press conference in Landover, MD to announce the administration's plans for a, "New Small Business Lending Initiative."  According to President Obama's statements, the initiative would focus almost entirely on increasing the ceilings on government loans to small businesses. (http://bit.ly/47ZRLy) 

However, President Obama once again failed to address widespread abuses in federal small business contracting programs, which have lead to the yearly diversion of billions of dollars in contracts intended for small businesses to corporate giants.  According to the administration's most recent small business contracting data, which was released on August 21st, 2009, the top recipient of federal small business contracts during fiscal year (FY) 2008 was Textron Inc.  Textron is a Fortune 500 corporation, with 43,000 employees and over $14 billion in annual sales. (http://bit.ly/W0EB1) 

In addition to Textron, corporate giants like: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, AT&T, 3M Corporation, Xerox, Dell Computer, Booz Allen Hamilton, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, Staples, Office Depot, British Aerospace (BAE), Rolls-Royce and French firm Thales Communications were included in the Obama Administration's small business contracting data.

Corporate giants in Asia and Europe were also included. During FY 2008, Ssangyong Corporation headquartered in Seoul, South Korea received over $254 million in small business contracts and Finmeccanica SpA, headquartered in Italy with 73,000 employees, received over $283 million.

Since 2003, over 15 federal investigations have found that billions of dollars a month in federal small business contracts are diverted to large businesses. (http://bit.ly/3ihWSI) 

In February of 2008, President Obama acknowledged the magnitude of the problem and released the statement, "It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."  (http://bit.ly/4fRrGq) 

The American Small Business League (ASBL) points to the fact that President Obama has refused to adopt policy or support legislation to address the problem.  ASBL projects that legitimate small businesses lose up to $100 billion a year in federal contracts due to rampant abuses in government contracting programs. 

"If you want to know the truth about President Obama's commitment to small businesses you have to realize that about $1 million a minute in federal small business contracts is going to some of biggest companies around the world.  He knows it.  He said he would stop it more than a year ago, and yet he has done nothing.  Look at the facts," ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said.

-###-